ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, January 17, 1997 TAG: 9701170030
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-5 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: ATLANTA
SOURCE: Associated Press
A high school football player and his father have taken on the NCAA Clearinghouse after it refused to credit the athlete with four courses he needs to be eligible to play in college.
Two of the courses were approved after the youth's father, a lawyer who won a landmark suit against the NCAA in the Supreme Court, advised clearinghouse officials they were vulnerable to a lawsuit, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported this week.
Jamie Ponsoldt, a senior wide receiver at Cedar Shoals High School in Athens and a free-lance journalist, sent the clearinghouse transcripts that included seven Advanced Placement courses and a Scholastic Assessment Test score more than 500 points above the minimum for athletic eligibility. But Ponsoldt, who is considering attending Virginia, Yale, Harvard, Columbia, Amherst and Davidson, received a letter denying certification.
The clearinghouse receives course titles submitted by the athlete and the high school. Inconsistencies between the two lists or unusual wording can result in the rejection of a course as core, or college preparatory.
After his junior year, Ponsoldt thought he had mastered 15 core courses, but the clearinghouse credited him with 11. Without specifying why, in keeping with its policy, it turned down advance economics, government and trigonometry, as well as gifted English.
Ponsoldt's father, University of Georgia professor Jim Ponsoldt, then became involved.
Jim Ponsoldt, a former antitrust lawyer with the Justice Department, counseled the universities of Georgia and Oklahoma in a landmark victory against the NCAA. The Supreme Court ruled in 1984 that the NCAA practice of negotiating TV contracts violated antitrust laws, opening the door for individual conferences - even individual schools - to strike their own deals.
The elder Ponsoldt advised the clearinghouse it is vulnerable to a lawsuit unless it retreats from what he regards as overstepping its duties. This past week, the clearinghouse informed the family that two of the four rejected courses would be approved, which should assure Jamie Ponsoldt of certification.
``I teach this area of the law, and I know a violation when I see it,'' Jim Ponsoldt told The Journal-Constitution.
He argued specifically that the NCAA is interfering with an agreement between a student and a university willing to enroll him.
Attempts to reach Bob Oliver, the NCAA's spokesman for eligibility matters, were unsuccessful, the newspaper said. Oliver had said last year that the clearinghouse is being singled out unfairly for the mass confusion, saying the high schools and athletes should share blame for not coordinating the course lists.
``This is a situation that needs to be cleared up,'' Jim Ponsoldt said.
``While the transcripts of thousands of high school athletes are being pored over by the clearinghouse, perhaps the examiner should be examined,'' Jamie Ponsoldt wrote in a column for The Journal-Constitution. ``The government is run on a system of checks and balances, but who is checking the clearinghouse? Absolute authority over the lives of young athletes is a lot of power - unrestricted power.''
In his column, Jamie Ponsoldt advised student-athletes: ``I suggest that you register with the clearinghouse early and ask a lot of questions. When you are given answers, if they don't make sense, question them, too. The system doesn't always work, and it has made me, 18 years old and full of hope, a cynic.''
LENGTH: Medium: 69 linesby CNB